


Bittersweet Dream

by PumpkinWrites



Series: Sweet Dreams, Candlelit Nightmares [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Adorable, F/M, Hard of Hearing Neopolitan, Mute Neopolitan, Sad Dreams, Sign Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 12:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11851233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinWrites/pseuds/PumpkinWrites
Summary: Neopolitan's dreams are the only place where she doesn't feel alone anymore, even though waking up is the most painful thing she has to do.





	Bittersweet Dream

_“ **How did you learn to sign?** ”_

_It honestly had seemed like a good question at the time. There were certainly hearing people who knew sign language, but she had only met a small handful in her lifetime, almost all of them in some kind of customer service. The chances of randomly meeting a hearing person who could sign had seemed to her to be very, very poor._

_But now that they’d been sitting here, her note sitting on the table between them as he typed away on his scroll, she was starting to regret asking. He’d answered her verbally almost as soon as he read the note, but the background noise in the tiny corner diner was too much for her to understand him properly. Answering her directly before taking a long drink of his coffee also hadn’t helped._

_Finally, he turned the scroll around, flashing only two words. **Law degree**._

_She blinked. Was it a joke? She… almost felt like laughing, was it appropriate to laugh? She peeked up at his face, and decided when she read no trace of humor or sarcasm in it that he was probably serious._

_He turned his scroll around, and tapped a few more times on the screen before he slid it across the table to her. **Depending which side of the law you’re on, either the best criminals are the educated ones, or the worst ones are. The worst of the worst, or the best of the best, are the ones with muscle, the ones with family connections, and the ones with law degrees. To get it, I had to take a few electives, a few free ones, and what they call a “humanities” elective. Sign language was available. It seemed more useful than art classes, those were just easy credits**_.

_Clearly, this had been what had taken him so long. Maybe he’d written that out, then saved the note and opened a blank page to give his first answer. She nodded a little bit, then retrieved her notebook and scribbled another question. “ **Why did you want a law degree?** ”_

_He shrugged as he pulled his scroll back and typed again. It was after another paragraph or so, the way he typed, anyway, that he turned the screen around again. **I didn’t. But I’d already gotten started with my career, and I thought it would be useful to be able to keep a cop from pulling me in on something that’s not illegal. And if things didn’t work out for me, paralegals can make good money with a two-year degree**_.

I’m happy they worked out for you, _she thought with a sweet smile, though she made no move to write it down_.

* * *

 

Neo woke with a start, looking around almost hopefully for the figure from her dream, before her senses returned to her, and she settled against the hard, cold wood of the bench.

She pulled her gloves off, and reached up with one hand to touch the thin, pink scar that ran from behind the top of her ear to just behind her jaw. After a quiet, shuddering breath, she did the same for its twin on the other side of her head.

The second time, her fingers lingered sadly over the two slight hardnesses beneath her skin, and her mismatched eyes started to grow wet with tears. The implanted devices may have only widened the limited range of sounds she was able to hear, amplified some volumes to make them at least audible, but they were the kindest thing anyone had done for her in more than ten years. The kindest thing that someone not obligated by blood to tolerate her had ever done.

Now, damaged in the fight that had torn her life apart, they felt like little more than a constant reminder that now, she would be alone again. Alone and empty, for the rest of her life.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote and posted this on one of my character blogs, meltandshatter, on Tumblr. But I was so attached to it that I decided to cross-post it here as well.
> 
> I've had this dumb thought that Roman went to, at least, just enough law school to be able to avoid getting into too much trouble. Apparently, an anon that contacted the "relatablepicsofromantorchwick" blog had the same idea, and it reminded me. So, thanks to that blog and that anon as well.
> 
> I'll likely be doing some things like this for my Taiyang blog as well, allourdays, but Neo's got done first.


End file.
